More than 1,200 soldiers attended a church service yesterday to give thanks for their safe return after six-months in Iraq.

They were representing all the regiments of 1 Mechanised Brigade. Prayers were said at Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire for the 23 men from the brigade who were killed in Basra.

Brig James Bashall OBE, commander of the 5,500-strong brigade, said: "I think we have definitely left Iraq a better place than we found it."

Meanwhile, the Queen yesterday praised the bravery of a soldier who carried out a daring mission in Afghanistan to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade. Capt Dave Rigg was one of four servicemen who strapped themselves to the outside of two Apache helicopters after L/Cpl Mathew Ford was shot by the Taliban.

After collecting the Military Cross for his courage from the Queen at Buckingham Palace, Capt Rigg revealed: "She said 'You're very brave to have done what you did.'"

Capt Rigg, 31, from Plymouth, and the other rescuers had swooped back into the battle zone perched on the outside of the Apaches, which have no room for passengers.

He said: "The Taliban were even more surprised than we were so we got away unscathed. We couldn't leave him there. The Taliban has a nasty history of mutilating bodies."

Defence Secretary Des Browne is to examine new evidence about an RAF Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre 13 years ago that killed 29 people. It says an RAF inquiry was wrong to blame the pilots' "gross negligence."